


Thoughts Before Midnight

by my_poison_69



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ash Lynx Needs A Hug, Comfort/Angst, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Okumura Eiji Needs a Hug, Past Sexual Abuse, Post-Canon Banana Fish, Sad with a Happy Ending, and eiji helps him through it, ash and eiji in new york, ash has an existential crisis, they both need hugs tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-15 00:13:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19598428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/my_poison_69/pseuds/my_poison_69
Summary: “Eiji, what if you had never met me?”Head snapping up from where his eyes had drifted to his lap, Eiji near visibly recoiled when he heard the question, having caught him off guard. What kind of question was that to ask? That couldn’t have been what was on his mind all night, was it? “What?”….Was it?AKA Ash questions his meaning in life and Eiji reveals that his life wasn't so perfect either before he came to New York.





	Thoughts Before Midnight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Daru](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daru/gifts).



> *waving a rainbow flag* happy (late) pride month y'all
> 
> anyway, thank you for reading, and in case you don't know this work is for the Banana Fish Reverse Big Bang, with some amazing art by @Daru!!
> 
> enjoy!

It was the little things, Ash realized the fifth time he jumped when Eiji unintentionally snuck up on him. The tiny things, so miniscule that _normal_ people who lived _normal_ lives didn’t even consider to think to worry about. (Why would they? They didn’t have to worry about gangs who wouldn’t hesitate to throw you away if you showed even the slightest bit of emotion besides anger or the towering mafias that had leaders who could barely be considered human, or wondered about the things that grand leaders of companies or supposedly “honorable” members of government did behind closed doors.)

  
And it wasn’t Eiji himself’s fault. God, it could never be Eiji’s fault. How could it be? How could someone who was so kind, so caring, so _bright_ that it nearly hurt to look at him, knowing that there was so much out in the world that could put out that brightness in an instant, be the cause of what was wrong with the world, and the reason Ash hesitated to trust anyone, even those he was so sure he could? It was almost foreign, _almost_ , he had thought one time as he watched as he smiled with Bones and Kong as they talked about something or other, and his mind wandered to another, younger, and not as bright boy with dark skin and a quick wit, whose light had been put out before he even was a teenager.

  
He still blamed himself for that death, and he blamed himself for not being quick enough to save him or to avenge him.

  
It bothered him at times, that this was the life he led, that he worried about protecting the ones he loved, and that he would have to dismiss and move on from the deaths of those he couldn’t, as though they were nothing, as though they were replaceable, as though it was their fault they had died. _It wasn’t, not when he was the leader, when he was supposed to make sure that everything went smoothly, that they were better than and smarter than their enemies. That the youngest members who joined because they trusted him to protect them made it to be old enough to protect themselves._

  
It bothered him at times.

  
Specifically tonight.

  
Too many of the nights Ash was supposed to spend sleeping he had done anything else instead, which it had been joked about was the reason he slept like the dead when he did manage to rest. It depended on what he had to do, sometimes it was going over information that had been passed through to him via his many informants to figure out who could possibly be enemies or allies to him and his gang. When they had been in LA at the professor’s house, his time had been spent near solely trying to figure out how to get into the computer and access the banana fish files.

  
Some nights had been spent differently, however. During the certain nights that he actually tried to sleep, he often spent most of it tossing and turning in bed, plagued by insomnia and his own thoughts. They differed from time to time, sometimes he awoke in a cold sweat, clutching his body and shaking as he remembered when he was younger and was stuck in that dreaded mansion he hated, or he remembered as cameras flashed around him. It haunted him, those memories and those nights (sometimes he woke Eiji and sometimes he dealt with it on his own, not wanting to bother his sleeping figure with things like that in the middle of the night.)

  
Tonight was one of those nights.

  
Staring up at the ceiling, Ash took a deep breath, then turned to his other side and tried staring at the wall. His finger twitched, and he stared at the clock. _11:49_. A few seconds passed, then: _11:50_. _Ten minutes until midnight_ , he thought. After a few seconds of contemplation, he turned and stared back up at the bare ceiling.

  
Shifting uncomfortably, he tried to close his eyes. _Why am I still awake? I have nothing to do, nothing on my mind, nothing, nothing, nothing…._

  
How had he gotten here?

  
Ash reopened his eyes as the thought crossed his mind. _How_ did _I get here? What decisions and options did I choose that led me here, to becoming the leader of a gang? What could have happened that had happened that would have meant becoming anything else?_

  
Trying to think back, Ash sat up and pulled his knees to his chest, furrowing his eyebrows in concentration in the process. Staring at the white bedsheets that gathered by the edge of his feet, he thought back, back to before Golzine, and yet everything seemed so fuzzy. He could remember certain things. His brother, for one. He remembered a poem he had written, which he had given to Ash before he left, but he couldn’t remember Griffin’s voice. Too many of his memories were like this, he realized. Only remembering bits and pieces of certain things and remembering others so vividly he could still see them.

  
He pulled his legs closer and closed his eyes. It had started with the baseball coach, he remembered, In that room in Cape Cod. He was seven, then he shot him, then he ran away, then he ended up in Golzine’s clutches. Golzine. Ash leaned back against the headboard of the bed. _It always comes back to that bastard, doesn’t it? To him and his stupid henchmen and that stupid fucking mafia and those stupid greedy assholes who priortized their needs over actual children-_

  
_Stop_ , he snapped. Clutching his chest, Ash evened his breathing, closing his eyes and attempting to calm down. _Why am I thinking about this? It’s in the past, and nothing I do now can or will change it. I can only move forward._

  
_Move forward…._

  
He glanced over to his left, on the other side of the bed. Eiji laid still, breathing softly as his chest rose and fell evenly. _Eiji_ is _my future_ , Ash reminded himself, _He’s what matters, not my past. I’m with him, and Golzine’s dead and was exposed for who he was. I don’t have to worry about him anymore. He means nothing. He is nothing._

  
And yet….

  
What if he had never met Eiji as well?

  
The thought nearly startled him. It was something he had asked himself rhetorically at times, often accompanied with a small smile as he watched Eiji hum a quiet tune while innocently doing work, or after he comforted him after a particularly bad nightmare, or at any time at all (he couldn’t help but eternally be grateful to Eiji for merely existing. He meant, no, he was the entire world to Ash). Extending one leg and leaning against the other, Ash sighed. It was a ridiculous thought, it truly was. He wouldn’t have stayed with Golzine, that much was true, and he probably would have still figured out the secret of banana fish….

  
But that wasn’t what he was asking, really.

  
If Eiji had never met him….

  
_He would be happy_ , he thought. _He wouldn’t wake up in a cold sweat like I do. He wouldn’t have his own nightmares about Golzine, or wouldn’t have had to learn the truth about how cold and cruel this world is. About how in this country, not everyone is truly created equal. How what people, often, too often young children have to do to survive. Ash ran his hand through his hair. I shouldn’t have pulled you into this, Eiji. You didn’t deserve to deal with this. These people, these things. With me._

  
With a sigh, he threw his legs over the side, and put his head in his hands as he massaged his temples. Below, he could faintly hear the sound of cars honking loudly, and perhaps even the faint shouts of angry drivers, still stuck in traffic. _The city that never sleeps_ , huh, Ash thought. Looking to his nightstand, he saw the alarm quickly change. _11:55. I guess that applies to its residents as well._

  
It was too late to be contemplating his existence, he thought, or to realize that his boyfriend definitely deserved better. He pushed himself up and off the bed, and grabbing the shirt and jeans that he had left at the edge of the bed, pulled them quickly on. His footsteps soundless as he moved, Ash walked to the bathroom, running his hand over his face and rubbing his eyes. With a quick flip of a switch, Ash winced as the bright light hit his eyes, a major difference from the room he had just been in. He let the water run for a few seconds, letting it get cold, before filling his hands with it and splashing it on to his face. He rubbed as hard as he could, before he looked up at the mirror. His pale hair was rustled, and his jade green eyes looked tired. To be frank, his skin had seen better days too, as he stared at the bags under his eyes. (This wasn’t the first night he had spent this week up later than he ought to).

  
He sighed (again) and grabbed the cup that sat a few inches away from the sink, filling it nearly to the brim with water. As he pushed it to his lips, he made the irrational choice to attempt to drink the entire thing (having a high IQ did, apparently, not give one the ability to make rational, sane choices that did _not_ make you choke).

  
Coughing and nearly retching, Ash gripped his chest. Holding on to the edge of the granite sink he attempted to stabilize himself and not slip and bang his head into the faucet. Taking deep breaths, he leaned forward. “I guess tonight just really isn’t my night, huh,” Ash mumbled to himself. Wiping the saliva and excess water from the side of his mouth, he breathed. _Time to spend the night playing games on my phone and suppressing my emotions_ , he thought, _As every healthy and mentally stable teenager gang leader does_.

  
Though he tried to turn the light off and close the door as quietly as possible, when he walked out of the bathroom, the other being he shared his room was sitting up, cross-legged and yawning while rubbing his eyes. Ash’s eyes widened. “Shit,” he said quietly, and moved forward, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up. You can go to sleep.”

  
“Ash, it’s midnight,” Eiji said sleepily, “And I just heard you choking in the bathroom. Are you okay? Is there something wrong? You aren’t hurt, are you?”

  
“It’s nothing,” Ash said, “Really. I just coughed while I was trying to drink water and it backfired and I choked on it, but I’m fine. You can go back to sleep, like you said, it’s nearly midnight. We should both go to bed.”

  
Key word should, he thought but didn’t say anything.

  
There was silence from Eiji, and yet Ash didn’t have to look at him to tell he was frowning, as he watched him move across the room. Eiji had known Ash not long enough (one year was long but it wasn’t forever, although together the two could have sworn it was) but well enough to tell both when he was hiding something and/or when he was lying. It was obvious to him, but apparently not to everyone else. It was in his tone, in his movements, but most commonly, it was in the words he used. It was always the same ones. “You say that a lot,” Eiji’s soft voice spoke out, so quiet he almost didn’t hear it. “That nothings wrong. _Especially_ when something _is_ wrong.”

  
Ash had stopped walking and was staring away from Eiji, however, Eiji could see the reflection of his face in the window he was facing, an unreadable expression painted on. He didn’t say a word, but his features shifted ever so slightly in response to the words spoken. Eiji paused, before there was a faint rustling sound as he climbed over the bed to get to Ash’s side, and he couldn’t help but stare at his back for a minute, wondering what was going through his head this late at night. He knew it wasn’t the first time, and chances were unfortunately, it wouldn’t be the last, but Eiji wished it would be. He loved seeing Ash resting, or at the least, in a state of relaxation. To him, it was a reminder; that Ash was human, that he was truly there and human, and that maybe, _just maybe_ the two had a chance at domestic life.

  
It wouldn’t be easy, Eiji had thought often, making the transition from dealing with gang violence and threats from the mafia (thankfully just one since the Chinese had stopped going after them, Sing’s doing most likely) and the government's corruption seeping through into the public, to an everyday job at an everyday place, or maybe, he had considered, being a photographer (Ibe had said that he wasn’t too bad at it, and it wasn’t too bad of a job to have). Ash had mentioned getting into journalism and maybe becoming an author (“or maybe a job at a company,” he had said, then grinned, “I heard that Japanese companies like having a ‘rowdy and loud American’ around to tell when a CEO’s plan is shit, because they’re not often told that by the workers below them.”)

  
It was Eiji’s favorite thing, thinking about the after of everything, of a normal life with Ash.

  
But before they got to that, they both had to deal with the trauma first.

  
“Eiji, what if you had never met me?”

  
Head snapping up from where his eyes had drifted to his lap, Eiji near visibly recoiled when he heard the question, having caught him off guard. What kind of question was that to ask? That couldn’t have been what was on his mind all night, was it? “ _What_?”

  
….Was it?

  
“Ash,” Eiji said softly, “Why would you ask that? If I had never met you ...”

  
His mind thought back, back, back before he came to New York City, when America was merely a glimmering metropolis in the distance, out of reach, out of touch. When he pole-vaulted competitively, when he flew through the air like a bird, high enough to breathe in the clouds, to forget his worries, with everything, school, family, friends, love, so there was only just him and the endless and vast blue field, close enough to touch but far away enough to grab and hold ...then dove down back to the ground, descending back to the stable earth, away from the heavens. Japan….it was a distant memory, now, and he knew he should have felt guilty, staying away from his family, especially his father at this time in his life, and yet….

  
“It’s not you,” Ash said quickly, and now he was facing him and not staring out the window, lost in his own thoughts. He looked away, mumbling out a small, “It could never be you, of course, I just….”

  
He took a deep breath, then he confessed. “If I never met you ...I would have solved banana fish and everything, I still would have lost Griffin, Dino and Foxx still would have died, Shorter would have died, Skipper would have died….

  
“And you would be in Japan, and you wouldn’t have to be dealing with any of this ...with knowing that this city, this country, this _world_ , isn’t that amazing, and what really goes on behind closed doors. You’d be with your family, and you’d be going to college and living a normal life. You wouldn’t have to worry about anything that any normal people doesn’t have to, and ...and you wouldn’t have to worry about me.” His voice choked as he said the last part. “And it’s the same with everyone I’ve ever met. If Skipper hadn’t met me, if I didn’t offer for him to join for ‘protection’ he’d be alive. Ironic, he joined to be safe and he got just the opposite. It’s the same with Shorter, he would be alive, and maybe Sing would still have a good relationship with his brother-”

  
“Well if we’re going based on that then Shorter’s death was my fault too,” Eiji interrupted.

  
Ash whipped around, shocked. “Wha-how could it possibly be your fault? You didn’t-he didn’t-”

  
“The reason he was injected with banana fish was because he got captured by the Chinese and by Golzine,” he said, “And the reason he was captured was because I trusted Yut-Lung and thought that he was a good person. And by going by that logic, that would also make me responsible for you being stabbed, because Shorter’s death caused Sing to take over the Chinese gangs, which caused the conflict between you and Lao, which caused you to be stabbed by him. And,” he paused, “I would also be responsible for my own shooting, and nearly losing banana fish and you being turned over to Golzine because I let Yut-Lung go. Is that right?”

  
Ash gaped. “I- _no_ , that’s ridiculous, none of those things were your fault-”

  
“Then you can’t hold yourself to that standard too.”

  
He went silent at that, and looked down at the ground. “Ash,” Eiji said, “Sit.”

  
And he did.

  
“Sometimes,” Eiji said, “Things happen. You make small mistakes, ones that don’t seem like they’ll be problems now, and that’ll probably sort things out later, but it only makes things a lot, lot worse down the line, which can end up hurting the ones you love in ways you can’t comprehend in the heat of the moment. _It happens_. Actions always have consequences, some that aren’t always visible at first.” He shifted and pulled his knees up, and said quietly, “Trust me, I know from experience.”

  
“....When you said that if I had stayed in Japan, I would be happy, and I would be with my family, and everything would be okay, no problems at all ...it wasn’t true. I don’t know if Ibe-san told you this,” Ash perked up, “but the reason I put a hold on my pole-vaulting and college and came to New York was because I couldn’t really do it anymore.”

  
“Ibe mentioned that,” Ash mumbled.

  
“That wasn’t exactly the only reason though,” Eiji said, “My family life wasn’t exactly perfect either. While I was trying to figure out what to do for college and about pole vaulting, my father was…” his voice weakened, before he cleared it and tried again, “he wasn’t in a good place. He was very ill, and he is still not well. My mother’s reaction wasn’t very good. She started seeing other men, instead of staying by his side and trying to help him through his pain. It hurt my family life, and put a...separation between my sister and I. New York was my escape from it all.”  
Ash listened intently as he spoke, and stared, shocked and speechless when he finished. Eiji looked and smiled at him. “You helped pull me out of the rut, both physically and emotionally, that I was in, Ash. Now do you understand? You’re a good person.”

  
“I….” Ash tried to speak, but no words came out. “Thank you,” he finally said.

  
Pushing himself, Eiji moved around so he was in front of Ash. Leaning forward he wrapped his arms around Ash, engulfing him in a warm hug. Tensing lightly at first, he relaxed into it, burying his head in the crook between Eiji’s neck and shoulder as he closed his eyes. With a small smile, he said, “You do this a lot.”

  
Eiji hummed questioningly.

  
“You always stand up and I sit down when you hug me.”

  
“I need to feel tall next to you sometimes, you giant.”

  
Ash let out a small laugh, disguised as a scoff. “I’m not that tall.”

  
“183 centimeters is very tall!”

  
“You’re just super short.”

  
Pulling the other into bed, Ash pulled off his t shirt, feeling too lazy and tired to take off this jeans. He laid his head onto Eiji’s chest, wrapping his legs around his waist, and settling in comfortably. _12:05_. Past the time they were supposed to be asleep, and yet they didn’t care. All was quiet.

  
Then:

  
“Hey Ash?"

  
“Hm?"

  
“I’m glad you exist.”

  
His eyes opened, and Ash felt like he had stopped breathing. He looked up, and Eiji’s eyes were closed, breathing softly. He smiled and laid his head back on to his chest.

  
“I’m glad you exist too, Eiji.”


End file.
